DDN IntelliFlash vs Dell SC Series comparison

DataDirect Networks and Dell Technologies are both solutions in the All-Flash Storage category. DataDirect Networks is ranked #29 with an average rating of 9.0, while Dell Technologies is ranked #17 with an average rating of 8.8. DataDirect Networks holds a 0.5% mindshare in AFS, compared to Dell Technologies’s 0.8% mindshare. Additionally, 87% of DataDirect Networks users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of Dell Technologies users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 18, 2024

DDN IntelliFlash and Dell SC Series offer competitive data storage solutions. Based on user reviews, IntelliFlash stands out in pricing and deployment, whereas Dell SC Series is highly praised for its features and overall value.

Features: Users find DDN IntelliFlash valuable for its high performance, scalability, and ease of management. Dell SC Series is favored for its comprehensive feature set, including automated tiering and robust data protection capabilities.

Room for Improvement: Users suggest that DDN IntelliFlash should improve its technical support and add more integration options. In Dell SC Series, users desire enhancements in system stability and better documentation.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: DDN IntelliFlash is noted for its straightforward deployment and responsive customer service. Dell SC Series, although slightly more complex in deployment, benefits from extensive support resources.

Pricing and ROI: DDN IntelliFlash is highlighted for its cost-effectiveness and favorable ROI. Dell SC Series, despite higher initial costs, is deemed worth the investment due to its extensive features and long-term benefits.

To learn more, read our detailed DDN IntelliFlash vs. Dell SC Series Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

DDN IntelliFlash vs. Dell SC Series

July 2025

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Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the All-Flash Storage category, the mindshare of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is 0.9%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of DDN IntelliFlash is 0.5%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell SC Series is 0.8%, down from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

All-Flash Storage

Featured Reviews

Jaehoon Oh

Chief Technology Officer at Lambda256

Supports efficient storage management through volume snapshots and offers reliable non-disruptive upgrades

I have no specific improvements to suggest for Pure FlashArray X NVMe at this time. The performance statistics could be enhanced. I can see the performance statistics in the Pure Storage console, but it does not show the performance by 4K byte unit. It displays IOPS and bandwidth, but IOPS is about real use, and I want to know how many IOPS are currently running in 4K byte units. I cannot see that IOPS because most storage systems report their performance by 4K byte unit. I want to see Pure Storage performance by 4K byte unit to compare with other storage or other internal NVMe SSD.

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Anil Rahulwar

Storage Engineer at Movate

Good customer service and support and suitable for large environments

It is very easy to install. Users don't need to remember anything while deploying IntelliFlash because everything will be taken care of by tech support. They can easily modify the installation or change the password with the help of the tech support. It is very easy to integrate IntelliFlash with other solutions. We have plugins that can be integrated with other solutions. It will require maintenance. It is the same as any other storage solution: updates and upgrades, firmware upgrades, and drive upgrades.

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RafaelGamaluis

Architect Engineer, IT INFRASTRUCTURES Project Manager at Vilavi

User interface offers clarity and detailed information while technical support consistently delivers

The best features of Dell SC Series are stability and replication. The replication solution is excellent, and they have a solution named Live Migration. It is a robust platform. The interface and the GUI (graphical user interface) for administrating the Compellent are exceptional, with abundant information that is very clear. The management capabilities are excellent, and the stability of our storage hardware is remarkable.

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Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"The latency is good."

"We are satisfied with the performance as it is significantly faster compared to traditional storage options."

"It has good, reliable, fast storage."

"The standout features for us in Pure FlashArray X NVMe are its robust DDoS protection, seamless transparent failover, and failback capabilities ensuring high availability."

"It's incredibly easy to use and greatly simplified our ability to both deploy and manage our storage subsystems."

"Pure FlashArray X NVMe will quickly overcome all the hurdles you face, including network and latency issues."

"It has benefited my organization because it has reduced time to insights."

"The duplication algorithm allows us to get a lot more use out of less storage. We're running a five terabyte array right now and we're running probably about 30 terabytes on it. So the duplication rate is pretty phenomenal, without a cost to performance. It still runs pretty smoothly."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pros

"EasyTier/hotcaching: Valuable because it allows greater performance than standard SAS disks"

"The initial setup is straightforward."

"We use IntelliFlash products for larger environments, like Qatar Airways."

"It performed great originally, and when it performed great, it was awesome."

"High performance and ease-of-management are the most valuable features."

"It has reduced our electricity usage by reducing the amount of disks needed for the virtual environment."

"It provides a combination of all the protocols that you need, without losing deduplication and compression."

"It's very fast. We were seeing read latencies of less than one millisecond. It is robust."

More DDN IntelliFlash pros

"Easy management of volumes: You can create volumes and easily assign them to VMware clusters, increasing their size."

"The setup is straightforward."

"This solution is easy to use."

"Most valuable features have been the system customization with it, the performance you receive, and their CoPilot Support (or Dell EMC Storage Support)."

"Its leading feature is the price-performance ratio, which is very good."

"It has good dedupe and compression. Also, the built-in data migration capabilities are pretty good, as is the federation. When we started migrating the workloads from different storage platforms, like NetApp and XtremeIO, it helped us in moving to that direction."

"The most valuable feature is the speed for the end-user."

"In terms of stability, it's good enough. It's okay."

More Dell SC Series pros

Cons

"It is on the expensive side."

"You cannot tag a LUN with a description, and that should be improved. What I like on the Unity side is that when I expand LUNs or do things, there is an information field on the LUN. This is the Information field that you can tag on your LUNs to let yourself know, "Hey, I've added this much space on this date". Pure lacks that ability. So, you don't have a mechanism that's friendly for tracking your data expansions on the LUN and for adding any additional information. That's a downside for me."

"I would like to see some AI features that would allow arrays to intelligently identify threats or unusual behavior in the data pattern and give an alert."

"We need better data deduplication."

"Many options to check performance, like read, writes, random writes, and random reads, are missing in Pure FlashArray X NVMe."

"The software layer has to improve."

"We have run into a couple of instances recently where we are running out of space. So we have had to buy some more packs for it and they have deployed fine and it has increased smoothly."

"They could add more support for file storage and different types of storage."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe cons

"In the proxy section you can’t choose a user account and password, so it is not allowed at the moment to go out, if customer has such constellation."

"In future releases, I look forward to more AI features."

"It's somewhat scalable, but maybe not so much as some of the competition."

"Performance is horrible now. Our original intent was to buy new storage in about two years. But since it became a critical urgency for us, we decided to purchase a new one in two or three months."

"Technical support is bad. It'd grade them at 30% or 40%. The response time is terrible."

"Snapshots are not as easy to access as on a NetApp device."

"It only keeps one hour of real-time data without the ability to do deep analysis of each element."

"They need to offer better integration for a virtual platform to enable you to create hyper-converged solution."

More DDN IntelliFlash cons

"It's not very efficient anymore. There are better products out there."

"It would be helpful if the solution offered higher performance, at least on the back end."

"In terms of additional features, I would like to see some kind of I/O meter, to indicate what we are using in terms of performance. I would like to see automation with that, where it would give me the trends. I want to know those things easily, to help me know where issues are going to occur."

"The lack of reporting would be the main issue."

"The initial setup is somewhat complex and should be made simpler to do."

"This solution could be improved if overall performance was improved and operated with a higher speed and supported a higher volume of RAM."

"From a performance point of view, it's getting a bit old."

"This product should be a lot more user-friendly."

More Dell SC Series cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We pay approximately $50,000 USD per year in licensing fees."

"Pretty much everything that you need is licensed when you buy the product. Licensing to me is different than the maintenance cost, but they can bleed into one another. We buy the product, and we expect three years of support bundled into what we negotiate on our storage arrays. I would start to see maintenance costs going into the fourth year, but we're not there yet."

"The product is expensive."

"The licensing is on a yearly basis."

"They can tout the functionality and cutting edge technology that they have, but that's where the price tag comes in. The cost is high, but I think as they grow their business and get more customers that it will probably go down a little bit."

"With VMware, we pay $300,000 annually."

"The tool's pricing is cheap; I rate it a six to seven out of ten. Most of our sales are not subscription-based. We sell the hardware, and customers keep using it. They only renew the service part annually. The support can be a bit pricey, but the solution is more cost-effective than anything else out there."

"The support cost per array is about $20,000 a year for 24/7 support."

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe pricing and cost advice

"I recommend the full bundle software in order to have all the functionality. It is more expensive to purchase it one by one."

"I think we pay around 100 grand per year for three arrays or four arrays."

"We were able to afford two tiers of flash storage at a price where the competition was giving us one tier or just a handful of discs."

"The scalability seems a bit more expensive than even buying a brand new one so far. That has been kind of a drawback."

"We have reviewed many platforms over the years. It is probably the best solution for its value."

"Pricing depends on varying life cycles."

"This solution could be better priced in comparison with other vendors."

"We have found the solution to be affordable."

"It is one of the most cost effective systems for us. We have been able to run it longer than most, getting the most benefit and money out of it."

"We have found it to be affordable. Comparing the cost with other hardware, it seems to be right in line with the compute and the storage that we get with it."

More Dell SC Series pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Government

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Government

Healthcare Company

Computer Software Company

20%

University

Performing Arts

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Pure FlashArray X NVMe?

Pure FlashArray X NVMe helps to improve our processing speed. It is user-friendly and easy to use.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pure FlashArray X NVMe?

The price of Pure FlashArray X NVMe is very expensive, though I do not know the actual price because I am using the E...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Pure FlashArray X NVMe?

I have no specific improvements to suggest for Pure FlashArray X NVMe at this time. The performance statistics could ...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IntelliFlash?

It is a bit cheaper than other products, 10% to 20% cheaper.

See all answers

What needs improvement with IntelliFlash?

DDN IntelliFlash should improve in terms of sales. In future releases, I look forward to more features about AI and M...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for IntelliFlash?

We use IntelliFlash products for larger environments, like Qatar Airways. They have large scalability and use more th...

See all answers

What do you like most about Dell SC Series?

I find this version to be more budget-friendly compared to products from other vendors. This aspect greatly benefits ...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell SC Series?

In our case, we received favorable pricing with Dell because of our strong partnership. While I acknowledge that Dell...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Dell SC Series?

For us, it is a great product. The deduplication and compression could potentially be improved, though they are alrea...

See all answers

Comparisons

Dell PowerStore vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 24% of the time

TrueNAS R-Series vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 16% of the time

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 13% of the time

Dell PowerMax vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 12% of the time

HPE Alletra Storage vs Pure FlashArray X NVMe

Compared 10% of the time

More Pure FlashArray X NVMe Competitors

VAST Data vs DDN IntelliFlash

Compared 36% of the time

NetApp AFF vs DDN IntelliFlash

Compared 18% of the time

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs DDN IntelliFlash

Compared 17% of the time

Tintri VMstore T7000 vs DDN IntelliFlash

Compared 10% of the time

Pure Storage FlashArray vs DDN IntelliFlash

Compared 10% of the time

More DDN IntelliFlash Competitors

Dell PowerStore vs Dell SC Series

Compared 44% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI) vs Dell SC Series

Compared 10% of the time

IBM FlashSystem vs Dell SC Series

Compared 10% of the time

Dell Unity XT vs Dell SC Series

Compared 9% of the time

HPE 3PAR StoreServ vs Dell SC Series

Compared 7% of the time

More Dell SC Series Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Pure FlashArray X NVMe

August 2025

Download Pure FlashArray X NVMe product report

Buyer's Guide

DDN IntelliFlash

August 2025

Download DDN IntelliFlash product report

Buyer's Guide

Dell SC Series

August 2025

Download Dell SC Series product report

Also Known As

Pure FlashArray//X NVMe, Pure FlashArray//X, FlashArray//X

Tegile, IntelliFlash N-Series, IntelliFlash T-Series, IntelliFlash HD-Series

SC Series Storage, Compellent

Overview

Pure Storage FlashArray//X is the world’s first enterprise-class, all-NVMe flash storage array. It represents a new class of storage – shared accelerated storage, which is a term coined by Gartner – that delivers major breakthroughs in performance, simplicity, and consolidation.

Pure Storage

Western Digital through its IntelliFlash arrays delivers high-performance storage with a complete range of features and connectivity options, including inline compression and deduplication, application and VM consistent snapshots, replication, RAID, data encryption, VMware vCenter integration, and multi-protocol support for SAN (FC, iSCSI) and NAS (NFS, SMBv3). IntelliFlash arrays deliver high availability through dualredundant and hot-swappable components, active/active or active/passive controllers, non-disruptive software upgrades, eMLC flash, and proactive cloud-based monitoring, analytics, and intelligence. A RESTful API provides scripted or programmatic control.

DataDirect Networks

Dell EMC SC Series arrays provide a unified platform for the ultimate in performance, adaptability and machine-driven efficiency. SC Series software delivers modern features that help you meet aggressive workload demands using the fewest drives necessary. With an open, future-ready design, SC Series storage integrates seamlessly with applications and infrastructure, enabling you to scale on a single platform and add capabilities without forklift upgrades.

Dell Technologies

Sample Customers

Fremont Bank, Judson ISD, The Nielsen Company

Bank of Stockton, Barnsley College, Boyes Turner, Brigham Young University

TGen, Frost Science, Gerrie Electric

Buyer's Guide

DDN IntelliFlash vs. Dell SC Series

July 2025

Free Report: DDN IntelliFlash vs. Dell SC Series

Find out what your peers are saying about DDN IntelliFlash vs. Dell SC Series and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.

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